The Feast of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo, Philippines

The Feast of the Black Nazarene of Quiapo, Philippines

The above photos were taken by Peter when we were in the Philippines in 2013.  Our Philippine holiday was just coming to an end so we were on a hectic hunt for Filipiniana souvenirs to take home to remind us of our wonderful 4 weeks stay over Christmas and New Year in my home country.

Anyway, Quiapo is the ultimate nest for Filipino-handmade goods.

It was so nostalgic and enriching to meander and promenade around Quiapo again, my haunt when I was still teaching at the Technological Institute of the Philippines.

Being a good Catholic girl, full of superstitions and guilty feelings,  (When I was younger, I used to confess to sins that I had not done because I had to confess something, I would then be feeling guilty for lying and confessing something I had not done but I would reason to myself that at least I had something concrete to confess for my next confession and so on and so forth 😉  Of course I was far from perfect, I was actually pretty horrid as a child but at that age you are in denial of your nastiness! LOL), I would go to Church after my class to give thanks for my new pair of shoes, new handbags, new clothes and just about anything new!  Apparently if you go to Church and give thanks for your new things, they would last longer!  I would go to Quiapo Church 3 or 4 times a week.  I just wanted to say how Quiapo Church was important to my growing up as a young lady of meagre means (spent all my salary on clothes and accessories.  It was hard keeping up with fashion in the 80s on a teacher’s salary!!!)

Okay, enough nostalgia!  I am not really sure how Peter felt about the hype during the feast of the Black Nazarene.  It was a hodgepodge of activities around the church of Quiapo and along Rizal Park.

Unfortunately or fortunately we were staying at Hotel H2O in Manila which was behind the Quirino Grandstand, where the Feast of the Black Nazarene was being held.  It was pretty strange to see.  People came to celebrate by the hundreds of thousand or even a million.  The throng of people, patiently queuing to get their turn to be near the Nazarene was something to behold.  And yet you can see armed policemen and soldiers roaming, mingling to keep order.  They were rather off-putting as they were armed to the hilt with the largest guns I had ever seen.  I was thinking that there was something not quite right about it.  Religion and firearms should not go together, ever, never!

Though I grew up in the Philippines, I had never been to a vigil to celebrate the feast of the Black Nazarene, which was what those people with their rosaries were doing.  I would actually want to do it one day, something for the bucket list to enrich my soul and spirit. 🙂